


Women Wept

by pigeonking, SnogboxCopilot (callmekia)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Collaboration, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene... of sorts, Really more hints at Nine/Rose, women wept
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 08:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4822721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonking/pseuds/pigeonking, https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmekia/pseuds/SnogboxCopilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine, Rose, and Jack on Women Wept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Women Wept

**Author's Note:**

> This was a collaboration between myself and my good friend, Mark. In one of our groups he was writing a story for each Doctor and I was kind of nominated from some members to join him on his Ninth Doctor story since Nine is my favorite and I'm 'the Rose expert of the group'. (Not sure about that, I think they were just trying to break my writer's block) Anyhow, after MONTHS we finally finished (due to my lack of internet access to trade back and forth.
> 
> Hope you enjoy. Mark and I had fun writing it.

No one would have guessed without knowing the history of the planet that the great ice mountains of Woman Wept had once been the waves of a great ocean that had frozen over. Just like any ocean this one had been teeming with life of all shapes and sizes. Many of those creatures perished when the big freeze occurred, but some were too big and too resilient to let a little something like a drastic drop in temperature affect them. Those creatures still dwelled beneath the ice and very occasionally they would break through to the surface.

It was on the crest of one of the smaller waves that a blue police telephone box faded into existence, heralded by a loud howling and grinding that competed with the harsh winds that buffeted the frozen landscape. Once the box had solidified the noise died down. Moments later the door opened and three people stepped out onto the frozen summit of the wave. One was a tall man dressed in a leather jacket, a dark green jumper and black trousers, with very short dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes. The other man was young and handsome with short dark hair and blue eyes, wearing a long grey trench coat over a white T-shirt and black leather trousers. They were accompanied by a young, petite blonde woman in her late teen or early twenties, swamped in a large brown fur coat over a pair of blue denim dungarees and a pink and white striped sweatshirt.

“You know that fur coat looks a lot better on you than it ever did on me.” The leather jacketed man told the woman with a warm smile.

“You used to wear this?” the woman smirked with a raised eyebrow.

“Long time ago. I was a lot shorter than I am now; bit more hair… quite scruffy looking. Couldn’t quite make up my mind if I wanted to be in the Beatles or the Three Stooges.” The man told her.

The woman chuckled at the description. “Well I’m glad you don’t look like that anymore!”

“You should appreciate these good looks while you can, Rose Tyler. I won’t look this pretty forever.” The man teased her.

“I think we’ve got a while to go yet before I have to worry about wheeling you round the TARDIS in a wheel chair.” Rose grinned.

“I don’t think that’s quite what the Doctor meant.” The other man said with a knowing smile. He was used to playing the third wheel in all the Doctor and Rose’s flirty banter by now.

“Well what else could he mean, Jack? It’s not like he can change his face now is it?” Rose replied.

The Doctor and Jack shared a look that conveyed a whole conversation that Rose couldn’t possibly know the meaning to, but fortunately they were spared from having to explain it because their young female friend was far too enamoured of the frozen wilderness before them to notice it.

“So what did you say this planet was called again?” Rose asked.

“Woman Wept.” The Doctor told her. “So called because if you look down on the planet’s main continental mass from space it resembles a weeping woman. Where we’re standing now used to be part of the ocean that surrounded that continent, but some sort of catastrophe involving the planet’s sun caused the ocean to freeze overnight, creating the frozen landscape before us and the very mountain we’re standing on.”

“You mean this is a wave? A frozen wave?” Rose asked incredulously.

“That’s right. Imagine surfing on one of these.” The Doctor beamed.

“I think snowboarding is more what this wave was made for now.” Rose chuckled.

“Hey, what a great idea… I don’t suppose you’ve got a snowboard lying around in the TARDIS somewhere, eh, Doctor?” Jack wondered.

“There’s bound to be one in there somewhere, but surely you don’t want me to go back and look for it now?” the Doctor replied.

“Who needs a snowboard when you can just do this?!” Rose exclaimed as she plonked her bum upon the frozen ground and slid herself off down the slope.

“You’re gonna get yourself a cold bottom doing that!!” Jack called down after her, though he was laughing when he said it. He threw himself upon the ground and began sliding after her.

“Woo-hoo!!!!” he yelled as he plummeted downwards.

“Honestly, you’re like a coupla kids!” the Doctor called after them. Then he too sat down and slid after them. “Wah-Hey!!!”

Though Rose had started down first, Jack was swiftly gaining on her. It was almost as if he was deliberately aiming for her so that they would collide and become entangled. And that was exactly what happened.

Jack’s trajectory curved towards Rose and within a matter of moments he was bumping into the back of her and the two of them began to tumble down the steep incline like two sausages pushed down a hill.

The Doctor, not wanting to be left out, aimed himself for the ungainly bundle of arms and legs and pushed towards it. Soon he was crashing into them and joining them in their tumbling descent.

Once they reached the bottom they collapsed in a tangled heap of limbs, laughing and giggling like school children.

“Aargh!! My back is gonna be feeling that for a week at least!” Jack yelped good naturedly as he drew himself out of the human cannonball.

“Serves you right for crashing into me!” Rose teased.

“Oh quit moaning, you pair! Anyone would think I was travelling with a couple of old women!” the Doctor smirked cheekily.

It was then that the ground began to shake beneath them, minor cracks spider-webbing into the frozen surface. The Doctor, Rose and Jack scrambled quickly to their feet.

As quickly as it had come the tremor subsided.

“What was that?” Rose wondered, face all serious now.

“I don’t know.” The Doctor admitted. “But my best guess would be that there’s something beneath the ice and it knows we’re here.”

“Look!” Jack shouted suddenly pointing down at an area of ice beneath them that was all but translucent.

A large serpentine shape twisted below the surface so fast that it was gone before they could discern any true details.

“Perhaps if we stand still it’ll forget that we’re here and go away, like in that film with Kevin Bacon.” Rose hoped.

The Doctor was about to reply when the ground exploded beneath them. Something rose out of the ice propelling frozen shards in all directions along with the Doctor, Rose and Jack.

The three of them came crashing back down on the ice, lucky to escape with minor bruises.

The Doctor looked up at the writhing behemoth that was bearing down on them with a mouth bearing at least six rows of needle-sharp teeth.

“I don’t think it’s seen that movie!” he remarked drily.

A great roar left the creature's mouth that seemed to ride across the frozen waves and eventually vanish into the frigid air. Rose's fingers dug into the ice as she scrambled to stand again. Jack and the Doctor were already back on their feet, standing before the great beast which had also frozen momentarily to assess them. Through the great furry coat she was wearing, she could hardly feel the Doctor clamping on to her arm. However, she felt him jerk it as he took off with a familiar, firm shout of "Run!"

With that, the three travelers were off, racing across the cold expanse of ground. The Doctor lead the trio, weaving their way through the frozen waves, beneath curved arches and over hilly masses until he spotted a cropping of what looked like caves up ahead.

"Head for those caves," he said, heaving Rose ahead of him as he looked over his shoulder to see that Jack was still with them. Jack had been shooting aimlessly over his shoulder and the Doctor grabbed the gun from him, aiming for several large waves and shooting repeatedly. There was a great cracking sound before they began to splinter and collapse between the two men and the great beast. Tossing it back to Jack, they ran to catch up with their young blonde companion.

Their longer legs allowed them to reach her just as she slumped against the side of one of the cave entrances.

"What," Rose began, pausing as she fought to catch her breath in the bitter air. "What was that thing?" she finally got out.

"Looked a bit like a mix between a Venusian Hyper-Worm and a Jonquitaithe. Don't know for certain, how about you, Doc?"

Running a hand over his short cropped hair now that he'd assessed his companions to be physically fine, he heaved a sigh.

"You're not far off, Jack. That was a Gallbriedon. I thought they'd all died off during the freeze, but somehow, they must have survived. That's the biggest one I've ever seen, must have found a way to live in this kind of environment." He looked about noting that the creature seemed to have not made it past the collapse of ice, or perhaps had just given up for now, and flicked out his sonic. It gave a soft hum, the tip lighting a familiar blue, as he waved it towards the cave they were looking into.

"Come on then," he said with a nod into the cave and began walking in.

Rose raised a questioning eyebrow at the Captain, who merely shrugged and walked on. She huffed a bit on her hands which were still cold, before wrapping her arms around her torso and tucking her fingers beneath the opposite arm and following along, casting one last curious glance over her shoulder to the pile of ice they'd left behind.

The blue light of the sonic cast eerie shadows, light reflecting at odd angles from the surrounding walls.

"This looks like someone, or something, carved it. It doesn't look completely natural." Rose noted, one of her hands tracing a rather smooth edge.

"Pretty sure these weren't here originally, either," Jack noted as he nudged an empty lantern on the ground with the toe of his boot.

"Perhaps some people survived," Rose suggested, an excited smile on her face as she hurried along beside the two men. The Doctor didn't reply, merely shrugged and moved further on.

Together the trio of time and space travelers went deeper into the cave. In the lead, the Doctor froze as he left the narrowed passage into a larger area.

"What is it, Doctor?" Rose asked, leaving the pile of scraps she'd been poking at to join him.

“You know what you said about people surviving?” the Doctor replied cryptically.

“Yeah?” Rose answered.

“Well, you were half right.” The Doctor pointed ahead and Rose looked.

The passage they had just left opened into a vast chamber where the walls and ceiling had been smoothed by something far less natural than the erosion of time. In the centre of this chamber there lay the sleek, shining bulk of a space craft. Around the craft there were scattered tents and other such temporary dwellings. A large fire burned in the centre of the camp and then there were the people.

There were around a dozen of them, men and women and children, all dressed in the same light blue overalls and heavy boots. One of the younger children, a little boy had seen the Doctor, Jack and Rose.

“Look!” the little boy pointed and everyone stopped what they were doing and did just that.

The Doctor and his friends found themselves the focus of everyone in the makeshift camp.

There was only one course of action so far as the Doctor was concerned. He raised his hand and smiled broadly.

“Hello!” he called out with a cheerful wave.

The men and even some of the women unshouldered weapons and levelled them at the new arrivals.

“That’s far enough!” commanded one older man with shaggy greying hair and an equally shaggy beard.

“It’s alright. We’re here to help!” the Doctor assured him, reaching into his jacket for a small rectangular black leather wallet. He flicked the wallet open to reveal what appeared to be a blank, white sheet of paper.

“What does that say?” the man asked.

“If you let me come a bit closer I can show you.” The Doctor told him.

The man shook his head. “Slide it across to me.” He instructed.

The Doctor shrugged. “Okay.” He knelt down on one knee and slid the psychic paper over to the shaggy bearded leader.

The man stooped to pick it up and glanced at the blank sheet. There was a moment of uncertainty.

What if the paper made him see something that he didn’t want to see? The paper could be funny like that sometimes. If people spent their lives thinking that something terrible was going to happen it was often difficult to try and convince them otherwise. How much hope did this man still have?

The man looked at the paper and almost broke down and wept where he stood.

“Oh thank, God!” he declared. “It’s okay everybody. Stand down. They’re here to help us.”

The Doctor, Rose and Jack could barely conceal their relief. They took this turn of events as an invitation to enter the camp. By the time they had reached the grizzled leader everyone in the camp was gathered to meet them.

The man handed the psychic paper back to the Doctor, who glanced at it to see who the man thought they were.

“We’re from the ICR.” The Doctor announced to everyone gathered as he placed the wallet back into his jacket. “Intergalactic Colonial Rescue. It looks like you could use our help.”

“What happened here exactly?” Rose wondered. “How did your ship get into this cave?”

“Well as you probably could tell on your way in, Miss, this cave is not a natural occurrence. We made it ourselves. Perhaps it would be best if I started from the beginning? I don’t know how much you already know, Mr…” the man tailed off as he realised that introductions had yet to be made.

“Doctor.” The Doctor corrected him. “And these are my friends, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness. Yes, please do start from the beginning.”

“My name is Benjamin Seymore. I’m the commander of this colonial expedition.” The man told them.

“Woman Wept was selected as suitable for colonisation by one of Earth’s deep space probes over a hundred years ago. We were sent out around eighty years ago aboard our cryo-stasis long haul vessel. The majority of our journey we spent asleep in cryogenic suspended animation while the ship travelled here on robotic-auto pilot. There were one hundred of us when the ship set out from Earth. All you see gathered here today are all that remain of that one hundred.”

“I’m so sorry.” The Doctor said simply.

“You probably know already that Woman Wept hasn’t always looked like this. The Woman Wept that we set out for was a green and blue Earth-like planet that was prime for colonisation. When we were six months away from the planet we were awoken from cryo-stasis by the computers. Something was very wrong. The ship’s navigational systems could no longer detect the planet. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have enough fuel to turn back and there were no other habitable planets within range. We had no choice, but to go on and see what we would find when we got there.

When we were three months away the planet came back from wherever it had disappeared to and we thought we were saved. It wasn’t until we got close to the planet itself that we discovered how wrong we were.

When we scanned the planet there was no sign of the moderate Earth-like climate that we had been expecting. The whole planet and its ocean had completely frozen over.

We couldn’t turn back. We had no choice, but to come in and land the ship. For better or worse Woman Wept was our home now.

Using the ship’s lasers we burrowed into one of the ice-mountains, reasoning that it would be better to be sheltered than out on the surface. We’ve been here ever since trying to exist in some way, but we came here to be farmers; to grow our own food. You’ve seen what it’s like up there. There’s no way that we can grow anything in that. We’ve been living off the food supplies that we brought with us, but they won’t last us forever, even with the people we’ve lost there is only enough food on our ship to last us another seven weeks, if we’re lucky and that’s with everyone on half rations. We didn’t dare hope that Earth would send someone out to check on us, but here you are, thank God!” Ben looked on the verge of tears again as he finished his story.

“What can we do to help them, Doctor?” Jack asked, speaking quietly so only the Doctor and Rose would hear. “We’re not really a rescue team. We can’t refuel their ship or give them food. We’re useless to them!”

“There’s only one thing we can do.” The Doctor replied, then he spoke louder, addressing Ben and the other assembled colonists. “You’ve all done a remarkable thing coming here. Looking to make a new life on a brand new world. Under different circumstances this planet could have been a new home, a new beginning for all of you, but fate had other ideas. There’s no shame in cutting your losses and walking away to fight another day. In fact, I have it in my power to take you to a planet where you could start all over again on a more hospitable world. Who’s up for it?”

“You have a ship with enough fuel to take us to another habitable planet?” Ben asked doubtfully.

“You can have your pick of habitable planets. There’s millions of them out there that would make an ideal home for people such as yourselves. What do you say?” the Doctor was rubbing his hands together with gleeful anticipation.

Ben looked around at his people. They were all nodding and murmuring at what the Doctor had offered them.

“I think you’ve got yourself a deal, Doctor!” Ben grinned happily.

“Fantastic!” the Doctor beamed. “Gather together everything that you can carry, essential stuff only, and I’ll take you to my ship."

Rose and Jack quickly joined in with the colonists to assist with packing the essentials as the Doctor and Ben continued to talk near the entrance, devising how they'd get back to the TARDIS. Thankfully, there wasn't much that was needed so they were soon all set and ready to venture onwards.

The Doctor, meanwhile, had been worried about the group and if the Gallbriedon had moved on or not. Ben had mentioned that while he'd heard noises about, nothing had come to bother them inside the cave in the time they'd been hiding. Deciding they needed to take the chance if they were going to make it out, the Doctor called the group to form up. He and Rose took the lead while Jack joined Ben at the rear to make sure no one fell behind.

In their small, ragtag group they left the cave and ventured out into the bitter winds. It was slow going with the uneven ground and carrying their bundles of food and supplies, but no one complained and it seemed things would be okay. The Doctor purposefully manuvered them away from where they'd blocked off the Gallbriedon and led them up another hill off to the left. As the Doctor trekked on in the lead, Rose fell back among some of the colonists.

"So, any idea on where you lot will want to start a colony?" Rose asked one of the women as she helped her keep an eye on some of the kids.

"Some place warm," the woman sighed wistfully before meeting Rose's eyes. Together they broke into laughter. Rose didn't blame her for her thoughts. As beautiful as this place was for a visit, it was a wonder the group had survived as long as it had in these harsh conditions.

"How do you feel about hot cocoa?" Rose asked the little girl that had taken her hand soon after she'd fallen into their group.

"With marshmallows?" she asked, big brown eyes wide with excitement.

"I'm sure we could find some in the galley," Rose replied with a smile, bopping the little one's nose with her finger. "Right, Doctor?"

There was no reply and Rose looked up to see him at the crest of the hill, frozen. Letting go of the little girl's hand, she told the woman and the others to stay back before she ran on ahead.

"What is it?" she asked before she reached him.

"They're dead. All of them... just gone." The Doctor spoke. His words were soft, but even with the wind she heard them as she stepped up beside him. Before them were scattered several bodies, all dead; frozen from exposure.

"I'd hoped some had gotten away. No one. Nothing. Nothing lasts." The tremor in his voice hit Rose in the gut as she watched his blue eyes take in the loss. Reaching up, she turned his face away from the dead bodies and towards her.

"We will," she said, taking his hand in hers before turning away from the bodies and towards the people just a little down the hill waiting for the go ahead. "And so will these people thanks to you. So, come on. I promised that little girl over there hot cocoa. Wouldn't want me to go back on my word, would you?" Her voice was teasing by the end as she bumped him with her hip, even as her eyes searched his face to make sure he was okay.

A smile slowly broke forth over his long face as her words sank in. He squeezed her hand in his before leading her back down to the group and mentioning a detour; there was no way he was bringing them through that cold grave.

Even with the detour, they reached the TARDIS safely. Rose and Jack worked some magic in the galley and soon everyone was warming up with coffee, tea, or cocoa (with marshmallows). The Doctor and Ben did some discussing before they found a planet not too far off that had just hit spring. The notion that winter would be a ways off was most appealing to all and the Doctor quickly punched in the coordinates.

After everyone had left to the new planet and they had said their goodbyes (Jack's a bit more amorous than either Rose or the Doctor's), the trio headed back into the TARDIS and with a great groaning and grinding faded from view.

Back in the TARDIS as the Doctor began putting in the coordinates for present-day London, Rose asked him about the ICR. A great smile broke out on his face as he began to speak.

"There's no such thing."

"No such thing?" Rose asked. "But what about Ben and the psychic paper...?"

"I knew he hadn't given up the moment I saw what was written on the psychic paper. ICR, the Intergalactic Colonial Rescue. When something goes wrong with a colony, because of the distances involved Earth generally doesn't send out a search and rescue team. They just give it up for lost and consign it to the history books. Benjamin Seymore was so desperate to find help for his people that when he looked at the psychic paper, his subconscious cried out for help and invented an organisation that doesn't even exist."

"Really?" Rose asked, shocked that the paper could latch onto that bit of hope like that.

"It's true, even in my travels I've never come across the ICR," Jack added, leaning against one of the coral struts.

"So, he wanted to be saved so badly..." Rose began, before shaking her head. "And now, thanks to us and the TARDIS they can finally have the life they set out for. It's almost like a happy ending after all that's happened to them."

"Yeah," the Doctor replied with that big, goofy grin on his face. "It sort of is."


End file.
